Study on noble gas behavior for CTBT verification regime; International Noble Gas Measurement at Mutsu city

Kijima, Yuichi; Inoue, Naoko; Yamamoto, Yoichi; Oda, Tetsuzo

no journal, , 

The International Noble Gas Experiment (INGE) is being carried out for global measurements of radioactive noble gas (radioxenons), as part of the international verification regime for the Comprehensive nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). There are many medical institutions and nuclear facilities in and around Japan, which are possible sources of radioxenons, and it is therefore important to understand their behavior of normal background for detection of underground nuclear tests. The joint measurement is conducted by US Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and JAEA. A transportable and high sensitive noble gas monitoring system developed by PNNL was installed at Mutsu city, Aomori, which was selected based on the information obtained by simulations with an atmospheric transport model and the field surveys. The measurement has been started for survey on noble gas behavior in and around Japan. This paper describes the outline and the preliminary results of measurement.